Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SIRENS CIRCULATING LIbrARY, NEXT MORNING
It was a morning as ordinary as any other morning as Saskia ticked through the usual steps of her routine.
So, she should’ve been able to call it a usual morning.
Except she couldn’t quite.
She wasn’t her usual self.
Not after last night.
She was still alight with sensation—the blood a fluttery rush through her veins…nerve endings yet tingly…the utter, unrepentant ache in her sex…her mind whirring in circles, starting at the moment Liam found her in the duke’s library until she was bundled in his carriage and rolling homeward.
Every.
Moment.
She’d awakened this morning—awakened might’ve been a stretch, as lying in bed and staring at shadows dancing across the ceiling couldn’t exactly be called sleeping—only to find her pencil eager to fill page upon page with what couldn’t accurately be described as fiction.
Rambling, incoherent diary entry was more fitting.
It should’ve done the trick of settling her, mind and body.
It hadn’t.
If anything, it had only het her up more.
As she passed through the reception room, arms laden with last week’s periodicals to be archived, Mrs. Dunlevy waved her over to the front desk.
“Will you have a look at this, Lady Saskia? We’ve not been open ten minutes and already a new member.
” New members ever brought that glimmer of excitement to Mrs. Dunlevy’s eyes. “Liam Sutton.”
Saskia’s feet stuttered to a sudden stop.
It was that name.
Not Sutton.
The other one—Liam.
He was no longer Liam Cassidy, and Bolton was his title, not his surname. He would have a new surname, and it just might be…
In a trice, she was at the desk, plonking her stack of periodicals onto sturdy oak and leaning across the top, scanning the names in the register book. There it was in black and white—Liam…Sutton. “Can you describe him?” she asked, possibly demanded, her heart a hammer in her chest.
Mrs. Dunlevy’s brow creased. “You can see him for yourself, Lady Saskia. He’s in the Reading Room.”
Saskia’s lungs could manage neither an inhalation nor an exhalation, but she somehow emitted a squeaky, “Oh?”
Liam…here.
She didn’t know this empirically—after all, she hadn’t yet laid her own eyes upon him—but she knew it.
He was here.
She straightened and squared her shoulders. The breath she drew in wasn’t as steadying as she would’ve liked it to have been beneath the watchful eye of Mrs. Dunlevy, who was considering her with a slight cant of the head and a bemused set of the mouth.
Saskia released her breath, somewhat steeled, and pointed her feet in the direction of the Reading Room.
With its walnut paneled walls and plush leather wingbacks, this room was the most masculine of Sirens’ rooms and its most popular.
Though it wasn’t yet quarter nine, already five members had settled into their customary chairs with their newspapers and periodicals open for their morning read.
Including their newest member who had chosen a chair close to the corner window.
It seemed Liam Sutton was, indeed, Liam.
He exuded an air of ease, an ankle idly resting on the opposing thigh, as morning sun streamed through clear glass panes, golden light picking out a few sun-bleached streaks of hair…
illustrating the cut angles of cheekbones, jaw, and chin…
imbuing the gold-flecked green of his eyes with a near otherworldly glow. A man who stood out in any room.
One couldn’t ignore a man like him—or, at least, she couldn’t.
And though he wasn’t reading a newspaper or a periodical, he was, in fact, reading.
A book, to be precise.
Curiosity pulled her forward.
What would Liam be reading so intently at quarter nine in the morning, anyway?
Through her spectacles, she squinted. The next instant, her mind registered what her eyes were seeing and she gasped, audibly, drawing no few reproachful stares.
Liam’s gaze lifted in its own time. No mistaking the mischief that twinkled within—for he read none other than When a Lady Dares by Harriet LaPlume. “Lady Saskia.”
“Lord Bolton.” Too gobsmacked, she was, to say much more.
He held up the book. “I’ve heard high praise about this author from my sister.”
Saskia swallowed.
“Not my usual reading material, mind you.” The bloody man was utterly at his ease, and here were her palms sweating. He snapped the book shut and balanced it on his knee. “Harriet LaPlume possesses great skill with the written word.”
The tips of Saskia’s ears surely glowed scarlet—from mortification or flattery, she wasn’t sure.
Actually, she was.
The tips of her ears were equal parts mortified and flattered.
“I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying Sirens’ offerings, my lord.”
“Oh, aye.” The man was having fun. “Shall I read you a favorite passage?”
Without a staying thought, she closed the distance between them and snatched the book off his knee, “No!”
Her exclamation garnered a few more glares, and even a few smattering of irritated grumblings, but Saskia had no regrets. Under no circumstances would Liam be reading her words aloud to her.
Simply, no.
From his wingback, he continued to observe her, the amusement in his eyes abated not a whit. “Your loss, Lady Saskia.”
The cheek!
Though her ears burned and her heart pounded, she recovered herself sufficiently to say, “We thank you for becoming a member of Sirens. Please let us know if we can accommodate any of your particular reading preferences.”
Still, he observed her—and she felt so very observed.
Of a sudden, he uncrossed his ankle and shot to his feet. “Will you come with me, Lady Saskia?”
“Come with you?” Her brow dug into her forehead. “Come with you where?”
“Just out front. I have something to show you.”
“All right,” she said, slowly.
He didn’t require any other answer as he led her from the Reading Room, then through reception and past Mrs. Dunlevy’s raised eyebrows, and out the front door.
Saskia stepped onto the top step and considered Sloane Street before her with its usual mix of pedestrians, carriages, and tradesfolk with their various conveyances.
She hadn’t worked out what Liam was trying to show her until he reached a lad holding the reins of a sturdy-looking gray gelding and a pretty chestnut filly.
Liam stopped beside the filly and lifted his hand as if he were presenting her. “Lady Saskia, meet Peony.”
Saskia’s head tipped to the side. “Why am I meeting her?”
“Because she’s yours for the day.”
“Mine?”
“Yours.”
“What am I to do with a horse?”
“Ride her, of course.”
“As you know, I can’t ride.”
“Ah, but that’s about to change.”
“It is?”
“It is, for you are about to have a lesson.”
“I am?”
“You are.”
An incredulous laugh escaped her. “Presumptuous.”
He shrugged, undaunted. “My sister trained her herself, so Peony is a reliable girl.”
The fact remained that a reliable horse was still a horse.
The thought must’ve shown in her expression, for he said, “You can trust me, Saskia.”
“I…” She swallowed against the reflexive response his words provoked. Then she said it anyway. “I do trust you.”
The amplitude of his smile increased. “Do you have a riding habit?”
“Actually, I do.” Several, in fact, that had never once been worn. Just as all ladies had ballgowns and court gowns and all other manner of gowns that weren’t of much use in the general scheme, they also had riding habits.
“I’ll wait here while you change. Oh, and wear sturdy boots.”
Saskia should’ve protested or said she had a busy morning ahead of her…
something…but, instead, she pivoted on her heel and walked—dashed, really—straight back into Sirens, avoiding eye contact with Mrs. Dunlevy and not stopping until she was upstairs in her bedroom.
In a matter of seconds, she was stripped down to chemise, stays, and stockings and reaching for the deep crimson riding habit she’d always especially liked but never had the occasion to wear.
Fortunately, the long row of jet buttons were at the front of the bodice, and she was able to dress without the assistance of Alice.
It was only after she’d tugged sturdy boots onto her feet that she hesitated. Slowly, she made her way to the dressing-table mirror and met her eyes in the reflection.
What was she doing?
This was madness.
She should remove this riding habit, don her morning gown, march herself downstairs, and inform Liam that she had matters to attend and a day to get on with.
But she knew she wouldn’t do any of those things.
What she knew she would do was march herself downstairs, inform Mrs. Dunlevy and her raised eyebrows that she was in charge of Sirens for the rest of the morning, and agree to anything and everything Liam had planned for her.
Even if that meant riding a horse.